Ofsted grade
reduction

A PRIMARY school has seen its grading slip from outstanding to good after a recent inspection - but pupils and teachers have still been praised.

West Park Primary School, in Coniscliffe Road, Hartlepool, was inspected by Ofsted over two days in June which resulted in inspectors downgrading the school from outstanding to good under the new tougher inspection regime.

Despite losing its top status, inspectors say the school is still good with achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils and leadership and management all graded good by inspectors.

Lead inspector Janet Bennett, said: “This is a good school. Pupils make good progress from their respective starting points, reaching high standards in reading, writing and mathematics by Year 6.

“The progress of individual pupils is carefully tracked so that those needing extra help receive the support that they need. As a result, all groups of pupils make good progress and achieve well.

“Teachers plan interesting lessons that promote pupils’ good learning over time. Parents and pupils are confident that behaviour is good. Pupils say that they are very happy in school because staff look after them well.”

Ofsted said the school is not yet outstanding because there are variations in teaching with rates of progress varied across the school and managers with responsibility for subjects to not use information about pupil’s progress well enough to manage dips in progress.

Under the new regime schools can be graded either outstanding (grade 1), good (grade 2), requires improvement (grade 3) or inadequate (grade 4), with schools graded inadequate inspected half-termly by Ofsted.

Mark Parry, the former headteacher who retired this summer, was unavailable for comment.